Ohio Sen. JD Vance, just a week after complaining about an “offensive” video of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer giving out a Dorito as if it were a communion wafer to promote President Joe Biden’s CHIPS Act, struck a different tune Monday when asked about comedian Tony Hinchcliffe calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” at a pro-Trump rally the day prior.
When asked about the apparent joke, which has drawn bipartisan backlash, Vance grumbled about people “getting so offended at every little thing.”
“I think that it’s telling that Kamala Harris’ closing message is essentially that all of Donald Trump’s voters are Nazis, and you should get really pissed off about a comedian telling a joke,” Vance told NBC reporter Alec Hernandez in Wausau, Wisconsin, adding, “Maybe it’s a stupid, racist joke, as you said. Maybe it’s not. I haven’t seen it. I’m not going to comment on the specifics of the joke, but I think that we have to stop getting so offended at every little thing in the United States of America. I’m just—I’m so over it.”
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Vance then mentioned how he had heard from someone angered by how George Lopez, at a recent rally in support of Vice President Kamala Harris, made a self-deprecating joke about Mexican immigrants—the context and tone of which was radically different than Hinchcliffe’s.
“This person, in fact, was encouraging me to blow this up and make this about how Kamala Harris doesn’t respect Latinos,” Vance said. “And my response was, ‘Can we all just take a chill pill and take a joke from time to time? This is ridiculous.’”
Asked again Monday night at a rally in Racine, Wisconsin, Vance refused to criticize the comments. “A comedian told a joke, and I don’t think that’s news worth making,” Vance said.
“Maybe I’m old-fashioned, or maybe I just grew up with a grandmother who had an especially foul mouth. But you know what I do? You know what I do when I think a joke is dumb or not funny? I don’t laugh.”
